


Through The Very Heart Of It

by FictionPenned



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27155119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/pseuds/FictionPenned
Summary: Peter looks around again, just to make sure that no one was watching her. Fortunately, everyone else seems focused on their own trays. He braces his palms flat on the table — sticky with a long day’s worth of grease and oil — and forces himself to take a deep breath, slow his heart, and clear his head. It is the worst time of year to be in Manhattan, not to mention anywhere near Times Square. Between Christmas and New Years Eve, crowds of tourists descend upon the city, chasing their Hallmark movie dreams and the uncomfortable experience of standing shoulder to shoulder with countless foul-smelling strangers in Times Square while the ball drops. Most locals would not touch that nonsense with a ten foot pole, but MJ is a long-time connoisseur of misery and loneliness, and spending the last week of a dying year in Times Square definitely checks both those boxes.Peter and MJ celebrate New Year's Even in Times Square a little early. Written for Fic In A Box 2020.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: Fic In A Box





	Through The Very Heart Of It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sandyk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/gifts).



There exists a moment between sleeping and waking when the body tricks the mind into thinking that it's falling. The nervous system confuses the relaxation of muscles with the sensation of weightlessness, and it pulls the body back into alertness with a jolt as sudden as an actual physical impact. Technically speaking, that phenomenon is called a hypnic jerk. It's roughly akin to the sudden halt that Peter feels whenever he reaches the parabola of a webswing and begins to rocket upwards again. It's also eerily similar to the intense bolt of dead that shoots through him whenever anyone looks at him too with too much interest. All of these things are pretty much useless from an evolutionary perspective, yet here he is, sharing a large order of McDonald's fries with MJ in one of the busiest places in the world with that same, inexorable instinct knotting his stomach. 

MJ likes him. He _knows_ she likes him. She has said as much on several occasions, however, Peter cannot seem to convince himself that it can last. They are high schoolers, after all. Peter has seen his peers get together and break up so many times that he's lost track of who's dating who, if he even had it straight in the first place. He knows that people tell each other that they're in love all the time, that you can kiss someone one day and never want to see them again the next, and that worry doesn’t even take into account the fact that Peter is secretly-not-so-secretly Spider-Man. 

There are a hundred thousand reasons good reasons that Peter-Parker-As-Spider-Man probably shouldn't be pursuing a relationship in the first place. His proximity to MJ has already placed her in the line of fire on more than one occasion. At worst, he is an active liability. At best, he's an awkward nerd who learned about dating from his aunt, who isn't even on the same page with Happy about whether or not they are actually an item. 

But despite everything, Peter cannot bring himself to imagine a life without MJ, so when she asked if he was free this Saturday to hang out in Time Square “like a pair of lonely tourists bound for a life of heartbroken mediocrity,” he said yes. Or, at least, he _meant_ to say yes. It came out a bit garbled, but MJ was kind enough to pretend that it was a perfectly normal way to speak and not an embarrassing mess. 

It made Peter think that maybe — _just_ _maybe_ — MJ might have been just as nervous about the date as he was, but now that they’re sitting across from each other, he cannot help but compare how calm and collected she seems in comparison to the army of dragonflies fighting for space in his stomach. 

Peter’s eyes flit from MJ’s face to the table to the hundreds of strangers crowded around them as he mechanically dips fry after fry into his milkshake. It’s a habit he picked up from Aunt May, who always said that ketchup contains just as much sugar as milkshakes, so there was no point in suffering through that cloying, suffocating, artificial tomato aftertaste. It’s a bit cold for milkshakes, but instead of teasing him for his order, MJ merely nodded knowingly and observed, “I have a cousin who does that.” 

In this current moment, however, MJ leans back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest as she tracks his third nervous glance in the same number of minutes. “You doing okay, Parker?” 

Peter inhales sharply — a panicked, unconvincing breath of a laugh — and replies, “There’s just a lot of people here. Hard not to think one of them might do something stupid.” As badly as he wants to be a normal kid with normal problems and normal habits, his status as a superhero has a tendency to crowd out everything else. It makes him hyper-vigilant, nervous, stressed. His sense of duty and responsibility ties him not only to his family and friends, but to every stranger with whom he crosses paths. It is a difficult burden to shoulder, and it’s not easy to find a therapist who’s prepared to shoulder it. He’s tried, but neither his Google searches nor the more traditional Yellow Pages were especially helpful. 

“Well, we could leave, if you want. The street’s probably just as crowded, but at least there’s a bit of air, right? You could always, you know,” MJ gestures, vaguely indicating web-shooting with a curled hands. 

Peter looks around again, just to make sure that no one was watching her. Fortunately, everyone else seems focused on their own trays. He braces his palms flat on the table — sticky with a long day’s worth of grease and oil — and forces himself to take a deep breath, slow his heart, and clear his head. It is the worst time of year to be in Manhattan, not to mention anywhere near Times Square. Between Christmas and New Years Eve, crowds of tourists descend upon the city, chasing their Hallmark movie dreams and the uncomfortable experience of standing shoulder to shoulder with countless foul-smelling strangers in Times Square while the ball drops. Most locals would not touch that nonsense with a ten foot pole, but MJ is a long-time connoisseur of misery and loneliness, and spending the last week of a dying year in Times Square definitely checks both those boxes. 

“Maybe that’s a good idea,” he admits as he picks up yet another French fry, looking more for some way to occupy his hands rather than actual sustenance. He doesn’t want to look any more like an idiot than he already has. After all, he wants to keep MJ around, not scare her away. 

MJ lips curl in a small smile as she asks, “You gonna carry that milkshake with you? I read a book last week about several people who almost died of frostbite. I’m willing to cut off your fingers for you if I see them start to turn black, but not going to lie, Parker, it seems like a bit of a waste.” 

Surprised, Peter looks down at his milkshake, and in a flustered stutter, says, “No. No. Fully willing to leave the milkshake here. Milkshake abandonment isn’t punishable by execution, is it?” 

“I’d have to double check, but I think it’s petty endangerment. Hefty fine. Not worth risking, really.” 

Despite himself, Peter laughs. It’s not a full-bodied laugh. Not a laugh free from care or struggle, but he does feel a great deal better than he felt a moment ago. One of the many things he likes about MJ is that though her humor is founded in a certain darkness, it never fails to make him feel better. She’s smart and clever and beautiful and all the things that he doesn’t feel worthy of, but he’s more than willing to bask in their light for as long as she lets him. 

Peter stands and shoves both his half-finished milkshake and the almost-empty carton of fries onto the tray. “Do you want me to take your trash, too?” he asks, gesturing at MJ’s Happy Meal. She ordered it because she wanted the toy, a tiny Spider-Man eraser that clips onto your pencil. She got the Hulk at first, but Peter went up to the counter and traded it for her. Thankfully, the girl at the register hadn’t eyed him strangely or asked any uncomfortable questions. 

MJ nods as she plucks the toy from its place among the discarded boxes and wrappers, eyeing it closely. “I feel like it’s missing something. Should I give it a little blood around the mouth? A bit of battle damage?” 

“No! I have an image to uphold. Spider-Man doesn’t lose fights, remember?” 

“You don’t have to lose a fight to get a little scuffed up. You won in London, remember, and you looked like someone ran you through one of those rock tumblrs in the science lab. I mean, it was hot, but anyone with a brain definitely would’ve thought you were on the losing side if they didn’t see those droids go down.” 

“Thanks,” Peter says as he sweeps her trash onto his tray. He means it to be sarcastic, but he finds himself swept away by the admission that she finds him hot. It’s a nice thing to hear, especially from a girl who he still considers _well_ out of his league. “Wait here, I’ll be back,” he says before he starts to weave his way through the crowd, dodging tourists with overloaded trays and children holding drinks that are too big and too heavy for their little hands. 

He almost stumbles over a kindergartner, and only his preternaturally quick reflexes and that familiar, weightless, panicked jerk manage to save the ice cream cone grasped in her hand. “Sorry about that,” he says quickly, wearing a small, apologetic smile. The small child merely stares up at him, blinking in intimidated silence. No doubt, her parents told her not to talk to strangers, and with a nod, he moves on, abandoning the trash and dropping the newly empty tray in the receptacle before shoving his hands in his pockets and working his way back to MJ. 

She has managed to slip the Happy Meal toy onto the tip of her finger, and she holds it up to him on his reproach, wielding it like a fingerpuppet. “Saw you almost make a child cry.” 

“I did not!” Peter says defensively. He holds out his hand towards MJ, and she entwines her fingers with his — Spider-Man toy and all. “Besides, I saved her ice cream. It was fine. Nobody saw except you.” 

“Imagine the headlines: Local Hero Terrorizes Times Square McDonalds.” 

“The Daily Bugle would probably publish it. It’s about on par with their usual fare.” 

“Did you see their piece on Venice? They claimed it was aliens armed with Stark Industry technology. I bet I could work for them. Just make up stories and call them truth. I could do a whole column about my theory that the Olsen twins are just one person. Pretty sure one devoured the other in the womb.” 

“You know what Mr. Harrington would ask you, right? He’d be like, ‘Do you think there is any upward mobility in that career choice, Michelle?’” 

MJ smiles, recognizing the familiar cadence that has come to define their school life recently. Even though graduation is still a ways away, the entire faculty has become fixated on college and the future, talking test scores and essays and campus tours and possible majors. Everyone’s been complaining about it between classes and during labs, lamenting an oncoming future that still seems impossibly far away. 

Peter dreads the end of high school not only because it means that he might end up separated from Ned and MJ, but because he doesn’t know what the future might hold for him. He’s the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, after all. He doesn’t feel like he can leave the neighborhood, and yet, everyone keeps talking to him about Stanford and Emerson, and Brown and a dozen other places that are definitely _not_ in the neighborhood. Whenever he floats the subject to MJ, she always replies with a dry joke or some other deflection. She doesn’t seem to have any more of a plan for the future than he does. 

“Do you need a career plan for something like that? Is it not enough to tarnish the reputations of countless public figures with baseless slander? I could write an exposé on Spider-Man’s secret double life as Hannah Montana.” 

“You wouldn’t.” 

“I know that you know all the words to Best of Both Worlds, dork.” 

“ _Everyone_ knows all the words to Best of Both Worlds. According to the good people on the internet, Disney Channel shows defined our collective childhoods. Don’t tell me you don’t at least know the chorus.” 

They step out together into the cold, booted feet fighting for space on the crowded concrete. Hundreds of people swarm the neon-lit square, heading to and from hotel rooms, looking for a place to grab a bite to eat, standing in will-call lines for tickets to Broadway shows. A couple stray snowflakes drift through the air, threatening an oncoming snowstorm that is yet to strike. MJ tightens her grip on Peter’s hand and takes a step closer to him, justifying the move with a quick “I’m stealing your body heat.” 

“Last time I checked, we’re dating. You don’t really need to make excuses.” 

“Yeah, but I don’t need any of these people thinking that we’re just here to get cozy. I’m here to judge them.”

“What better way to judge them than to immerse yourself in the shared experience? We could stand on the stairs and kiss and take selfies, but, you know, ironically.” It’s a poor, floundering attempt at mixing MJ’s life philosophy with his own enthusiasm, and she laughs at his efforts. 

“You don’t really get it, do you Parker?” 

“I don’t,” he admits, “But I like it anyway. I mean, I like you. I think you’re pretty great.” 

MJ takes a step closer, checking him with her shoulder, and a mother with a shopping bag-laden stroller immediately tries to run them down as if it’s a battering ram. Peter pulls her out of the way, but her underestimates his strength, and he nearly trips over one of the many barriers that have begun to mark the corrals in which naïve tourists will be pinned on New Year’s Eve. Only a sticky hand stops his fall, but the maneuver only works for a split second before his grip pulls the fence down and tugs MJ along with him. Instinctively, he rolls, protecting MJ from the blow of hitting the pavement, but leaving her fully exposed to a blow from the falling fence. 

He winces as it hits her shoulders, which are mercifully protected by the down in her jacket. 

“Sorry,” he apologizes, before scrambling to hold up the fence and help her up. 

“When I die, can you make sure that the papers say I was murdered by a stroller?” MJ asks, taking his hand and accepting his help. 

“I can try.”

“Hey!” Someone yells. “You’re not supposed to be here! Get on the other side of the fence.” 

Peter rolls his eyes and brings out the heavy accent that he only uses when he’s mocking other New Yorkers. “Yeah, yeah, can’t you see we’re walking here, Buddy?” 

Beside him, MJ snorts. 

When they’re finally safely back over the barricade and on the sidewalk, he glances over at her. “What?” 

“You sound terrible.” 

“Thanks, that’s exactly what every guy wants to hear when they take their girlfriend to Times Square on the second-worst day of the year.” The sentiment is half sarcasm, half genuinely wounded pride, but the slight hurt doesn’t linger long. 

“Come on, now. You’re not going to get hung up on that, are you? After you threw us in the path of a rampaging Karen with a stroller?” MJ’s face is terribly close to his, and there seems to be a tiny hint of a bounce in her step. 

Peter jokingly purses his lips, feigning deep thought. “I don’t know. Doesn’t really feel equitable to me, especially since I risked a serious charge of milkshake abandonment for you.” 

“Remind me why we’re dating, Parker? Doesn’t seem worth it, does it?” 

For a moment, that sense of falling returns. The jerk of panic, the jolt of fear, the instant of unshakeable paralysis. This time, however, instead of surrendering to it, Peter fights through it. He tries to be the cool guy, the sort of guy that Spider-Man might be if he wasn’t an awkward nerd who trips over pedestrian barriers and barely knows how to talk to the girl he likes. 

He stops in the middle of the flooded sidewalk, dragging MJ to a halt with him. She turns around to face him, a question half-formed upon her lips. She doesn’t get a chance to ask him before he takes a deep breath and kisses her. It’s not a particularly good kiss, partially due to the cold and partially due to the people who keep jostling and cursing at them as they try to fight their way through this human traffic jam. For just a split second, however, he felt cool, and he desperately hopes that MJ sensed that cool, too.

She stares up at him for a second, swiping a thoughtful tongue over her lips before she says, “I guess that’s why.”

A family of six almost plows them down, and MJ tugs Peter forward again, dragging him down the sidewalk like a golden retriever on a leash. “Where are we going?” he asks. “Do you have a plan? I don’t have a plan. McDonald’s was the extent of my plan.” 

MJ surveys the square as she continues to stride forward, peering at the signs and storefronts and the faceless crowd that ebbs and flows throughout its many paths and eddies. Peter does his best to follow her gaze, but it’s hard to look at her at the world and where he’s putting his feet at the same time. MJ’s presence has a habit of drowning out everything else. She’s the only thing that he can think about. 

When she finally answers, there’s a hint of mischief coloring her tone. “Do you want to do something stupid, Parker?” 

“What kind of stupid? Ripley’s Believe It Or Not stupid? Guy Fieri’s tourist trap stupid? Conning tourists out of $10 with counterfeit tours stupid?” 

MJ points up at the building that juts into the middle of the square, whose roof houses the iconic ball that drops on New Year’s Eve, primed and ready to go for the televised spectacle that is set to take place a couple of nights from now. “How do you feel about making New Year’s Eve come a bit early, Parker? Ruin it for all these sheep by having our own private party first?” 

Shielding his eyes against a particularly bright electronic billboard, Peter looks up at the escapade in question. “Do you think that’s allowed?” 

“I don’t think it’s _not_ allowed. No one tends to make rules about this sort of thing until it happens, right? Besides,” she says, throwing out an arm as she gestures at all the people walking by, each one focused on their phones and their feet and scowling at anyone who dares to crowd them too closely. “No one’s looking.”

Peter flicks his tongue over his lips, considering the situation. It sounds a great deal more fun than Ripley’s Believe It Or Not or guzzling overpriced virgin Margarita’s at Guy Fieri’s, if a bit risky. One wrong move, and he’ll end up all over Youtube again, with commentary picking apart Spider-Man’s selfish date and associated vandalism in Times Square. “If you don’t think it’ll break anything…” he says warily, but he barely manages to get the words out before MJ’s grip tightens around his fingers with the sheer force of her excitement. 

“What do you need? An alley? A conveniently parked van? A phone booth?” 

Peter blinks in confusion. “Well, Google Maps would be a start.” 

It takes twenty minutes and a phone call to Ned to figure out the best approach for getting up to the top of the building without drawing too much attention to themselves. It requires a bit of a roundabout route, and every time they reach the lowest point of a swing, Peter can feel not only that familiar tug at the bottom of his abdomen, but MJ grip him a little tighter as she tries to bite back her screams. He knows that she is less accustomed to web-swinging than he is, but it’s the price that has to be paid if she wants their own private New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square. 

Even when they’re safely and securely standing on the rooftop with firm concrete beneath their feet, MJ is still clinging to him as if he is the only thing standing between her and a seemingly-endless tumble into darkness. 

“You’re safe,” he says, fighting to hold back his laugh. 

“How do you do that all of the time?” she says, shoving herself away from him as if suddenly ashamed of the contact. 

“It gets easier, you know. And I’m the one driving, so.” 

MJ looks up at him through her lashes. 

Somewhere in his pocket, his cellphone rings. He pulls it out of his pocket, glances at the caller ID, and answers it with a quick and brutal “Not now, Ned. Busy,” before hanging up again. 

MJ takes a step back, pulling her jacket tightly around her body and glancing up at the crystal ball that hangs above them. It’s much bigger than it looks both on TV and on the ground, and for the first time, she can finally understand the hype. Not enough to want to spend 24 hours surrounded by over-enthusiastic, drunk strangers, but enough that she might consider turning on _Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve_ in a couple days to see it drop for real and mock Ryan Seacrest’s hair. 

“How do you plan to do this, Parker?” 

Peter looks up at the ball, considers the mechanisms holding it in place, tries to figure out how to pull it down without leaving any lasting damage for some poor person to rush to clean up tomorrow. He’s the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, after all not the Pesky Manhattan Menace. 

He runs his hand over his chin as he turns a plan over in his mind, racing through a dozen possible contingencies before he finally declares, “Okay, okay, I think I’ve got it.” Looking over at MJ, he holds out a hand. “I’m going to need that Happy Meal toy, though. Don’t worry. It’s being sacrificed for a good cause.” 

“Why?” MJ asks suspiciously, though she reaches into her pocket and drops the toy into Peter’s waiting palm without waiting for an answer. 

“See that sensor, there?” Peter says, putting his hands on MJ’s shoulder and guiding her into his sightline before he points up at it. 

“Yeah.” 

“I need to block it out with something. Web isn’t enough unless I use about twenty layers. Everyone in this city keeps making their sensors web-proof. It’s very annoying. But this —“ he holds up the toy with a grin — “I can just stick it to the sensor, make sure we’re out of the way, pull down the ball, and we should be good to go. It’s not quite the battle damage you wanted, but he’s dying for a noble cause.” 

MJ crosses her arms over her chest. “You’ll owe me another one, you know.” 

“Big ask, replacing a mass-produced child’s toy.” 

“I need something to menacingly decapitate when I’m stuck next to Tony in math class.”

Peter winces, but he does his best to hide it. “Does it need to be me?” 

“Kind of. He worships you, you know. Being saved by Spider-Man is his one claim to fame.” 

“That and his Insta-stories.” 

MJ wrinkles her nose. “I don’t think anyone watches those unless you’re in them. I mean, not you-you, but Spider-Man-you.” 

“Good to know that there’s a distinction,” Peter teases with a wink. 

“Hey, Peter?”

“Yeah?” 

“Shut up.” 

With a bright smile, Peter throws the Happy Meal toy up into the air and pins it against the sensor in question with a bit of well-placed webbing. The web shooter on his opposite hand secures a line to the ball itself, ready to pull it down when MJ says the word. 

“Do you want to give it a countdown?” he asks, looking around to make absolutely sure that they’re completely clear of the landing pad. 

“Should I start from 10 or 666?” 

“10 is good. 666 would take a while.”

“Okay. 10…9…” MJ starts, shoving her hands in the pocket and looking up at the famous landmark. 

“8…7…6…” Peter says, joining in with a smile. 

“5…4…3…2…1…”

“Happy New Year!” Peter shouts, and tugs on the line. 

It would be an understatement to say that he was not prepared for how quickly the ball descends towards to the rooftop. Without whatever systems normally guide it, gravity takes hold, and though nothing breaks, there’s a deafening boom, and Peter finds himself instinctively grabbing MJ, ready to rocket to safety if something happens to explode. 

Nothing does. 

His racing heart begins to slow, and he feels MJ erupt into laughter beside him. 

Soon, enough, he joins her. Laughing with MJ is, he thinks, the best way to usher in the fake New Year. After a moment, when she’s finally managed to get herself back under control enough for her mouth to form words, MJ looks over at him. “In all those Hallmark movies, they always make a big deal about how the first thing you need to do in the New Year is kiss someone you like. Supposed to be lucky, or something.”

Peter, though familiar with the idea, feigns ignorance. “Yeah?” 

MJ’s eyes narrow and she leans a bit closer. The light from the fallen New Year’s Eve ball skates over her features, bathing her in an affectionate, if slightly blue, glow. Peter wishes he had a camera to commit the moment to memory. “Want to test it out?” 

“Does it count if it’s a fake New Year?” 

“All New Year’s are arbitrary, Parker,” she sniffs, as if she is the authority on calendars. 

Peter’s heart shoots away from him again, once again off to the races, anticipating the excitement of kissing MJ here on the roof in the secret light of their own New Year’s Eve, floating above the insufferable crowds that fight on the street below. “I — I think it’s worth a shot, yeah.” 

He stumbles over the words, but it doesn’t matter. 

Her hands lock around his neck and her lips are on his, wrapping him in a kiss far warmer than the weather would seem to allow. Peter closes his eyes and gives into it, allows himself to relax into her touch, to give into the dizzy giddiness of the moment. The ground seems to give way beneath his feet, and for a moment — just a moment — he has the distinct sense of falling. He doesn’t want to flinch, doesn’t want to jerk awake, doesn’t want the panic that comes at the point of impact as his nervous system pulls him back to alertness. 

He thinks that he could spend an entire year falling into MJ. 

And who knows? Maybe he will. 

Eventually, they part. 

“Happy Secret New Year, Parker,” MJ whispers against him, breath tickling his face. 

Peter coughs to clear his throat, afraid that his voice might crack or otherwise weasel away from him and ruin the moment. 

“Happy Arbitrary New Year, MJ.” 

There’s a pause, foreheads pressing against foreheads, before MJ flinches and opens her eyes, looking at the edge of the roof and down to the busy streets below. Her own hypnic jerk after an imaginary fall.  
  
"Hey, Peter?"   
  
"Yeah?"

“How are we supposed to get down?”


End file.
